Polymers encompass a large class of natural and synthetic materials with a wide variety of properties. The ability to vary the properties of polymers, including boiling point, melting point, viscosity, polarity, tacticity, chain length, morphology, crystallinity, and mechanical characteristics, makes them useful in a variety of applications.
Nanotechnology is a rapidly advancing area of science. Nanostructures and nanomaterials (e.g., nanoparticles, nanorods, nanowires, nanotubes, etc.) can serve as building blocks or additives for other materials and they continue to receive considerable attention due to their intriguing and varied properties. Organometallic and organic solution phase synthetic routes have enabled the synthesis of functional inorganic quantum dots and nanoparticles. These nanomaterials form the building blocks for new bottom-up approaches to materials assembly for many technological applications. Nanotechnology continues to find new and useful application in the areas of optics, electronics, optoelectronics, magnetic technologies, sensory materials and devices, drug delivery, and biotechnology.